What is Melbourne’s best restaurant? Which chefs rule them all? Where’s the nicest place to eat where tracksuit pants are OK? All was revealed at the second annual Time Out Melbourne Food Awards.

Over 260 of the city’s top chefs, professional eaters and Time Out readers took the dark stumble down ACDC lane to Pastuso (the new Peruvian cevicheria, pisco bar and grill by the San Telmo team), where the city’s best chefs and restaurants for 2014 were recognised.

“Melbourne’s chefs, apprentices, waiters and restaurateurs keep upping their game every single year,” says Time Out Melbourne’s food and drink editor, Gemima Cody, “and we’re excited to acknowledge everyone pushing those boundaries and those who make this such a great city to live and eat in.”

It came as a surprise to no-one that chef Dan Hunter’s epic restaurant Brae took the top award for Restaurant of the Year. Likewise that chef Dave Verheul scored the Hot Talent award for putting the Town Mouse on the map. It was industry legend Philippa Sibley of Prix Fixe who claimed the inaugural Chef of the Year award while Saint Crispin restaurant on Smith Street just scraped into the New Restaurant category as a one-year-old and took out the gong. The north actually dominated this year. Another off-Smith Street eatery, Jimmy Grants, won best Bang for Buck while vegan South American eatery Smith and Daughters was crowned this year’s People’s Choice winner in a landslide victory.

As with all Time Out awards, the night was as much about eating and drinking as talking about it. Pastuso plated up the best of their new menu in canapé form including their snapper ceviche in three types of 'tiger’s milk' (limey curing liquor), a potato terrine topped with Alaskan crab meat and dark chocolate mousses lifted with chilli jam. There were also free-flowing drinks from sponsors Appletiser, whose sparkling apple juice made the gin cocktails, wines from Pepperjack and Vale Ale beers from Mclaren Vale.